Quick Take:Mr. Robot Season 2 is a visual and cerebral spectacle that moves slowly but surely toward its twists and conclusions. This second season sparks in similar ways to its opening season with strong performances, engaging direction and writing, and a dreary and claustrophobic pervading theme.

***This review's spoiler heavy. Mr. Robot is an intensely twist-driven show which is best viewed without being spoiled on events. If you have not seen both seasons in their entirety, you should watch them including the recently aired finale before reading on.***

Mr. Robot fails as a weekly television experience. It is slow, laborious, and artistically dense. In certain episodes, hardly anything happens while the multiple twists become too obvious as you think back on the show's structure and repeated references.

However, it is a fantastic viewing experience as a whole. The pacing molds the story together. The acting dominates the screen. The direction and writing sparkle throughout. It just is not a show that is bred for the weekly grind, better binged in short order.

This juxtaposition is the modern dilemma of television. Television creators must decide whether to delve into characters or story. Mr. Robot tells a single cohesive story of its cast of characters, written as a long form narrative. Many of the recent great television shows have been similar to this with Breaking Bad mastering the form.

Season two continues the story of Elliot Alderson, a brilliant man trapped inside his own mind with his later ego, Mr. Robot, taking the form of his late father. Elliot and Mr. Robot have begun a grand plot to bring down E Corp, the foremost corporate enterprise in the world, as the leaders of a hacking group known as fsociety.

While the first season saw Elliot bring down E Corp by completing a hack that wiped all of E Corp's digital records, this second season jumps past the economic chaos that followed and focuses on the mental state of Elliot who is struggling to understand what he, as Mr. Robot, is doing day to day.

The problems of Elliot's actions are felt more by the supporting characters. Angela Moss has joined E Corp in an attempt to right wrongs only to see herself turning corrupt. Meanwhile, Darlene is leading the rest of fsociety in continuing the fight against E Corp.

Aren't they just the most delightful modern family? (Image Courtesy of: usanetwork.com)

As was also notable in the first season, Mr. Robot is film on television, an experimental experience of form and style driven by the vision of Sam Esmail (Comet) whose focus with this series is noticeably movie-like in how many episodes he had a hand in directing/writing.

The second season carries its influences on its sleeve similar to the first, still a mashup of Fight Club, American Psycho, and Taxi Driver with the style of Stanley Kubrick. Not many people could pull these classics together and make them feel new and fresh, but Esmail does just that.

The signature style of the series is even more front and center this season with Esmail at the controls. The camera never focuses on the characters but the space around them, often showing their confinement through the small boxes of space they take up. Even when the camera highlights the character front and center, it is only their head not body.

The writing also stands out though not always positively with it often feeling unnatural the way people speak. When the actors can sell the lines though, they spark. It is clear Esmail has a symbolic focus with this show, always carrying a heavy set narrative in the background.

The stars of this show that make every line sparkle are once again Rami Malek and Christian Slater. Malek has a tendency to mumble, but he's just so convincing in every moment as a complex character who is not even sure of his own ability. Slater plays Mr. Robot with such intense malice but then brings such warmth when he is Elliot's father.

Among the rest of the cast, Portia Doubleday and Carly Chaikin are good enough but don't stand out. Stephanie Corneliussen comes into more focus as Tyrell Wellick's wife though she seems to be given too one note of a focus while new addition Grace Gummer (Frances Ha) doesn't quite make FBI agent Dominique DiPierro as strong as he should be.

The closest this show gets to having an antagonist beyond Mr. Robot himself, Phillip Price finally becomes central here and is brilliantly creepy thanks to Michael Cristofer (Die Hard with a Vengeance). In more of a guest role, BD Wong (Jurassic Park) steals the show in every scene as White Rose, dangerous and eerie.

Elliot's chosen an odd collection of people to trust with his sanity. (Image Courtesy of: usanetwork.com)

The first season of Mr. Robot thrived off its big Fight Club twist, and the second season does not disappoint in terms of twists and turns. We find out the two thirds of the season are spent with Elliot in a prison cell, but we don't find this out until the end of the seventh episode.

The ongoing story of Tyrell Wellick and his disappearance if not death leads to the full reveal of Phase 2. We even find out that Mr. Robot has orchestrated everything through the first two seasons including the seemingly hostile nature of the Dark Army toward fsociety.

None of the twists are cheated out, all carefully constructed to the point where they can be figured out. However, figuring them out ahead of time rarely spoils the viewing experience as the twists are psychological and important for understanding the fragility of Elliot, the real focus of the series.

What makes this second season somewhat less successful than the first is that it moves far slower. Elliot's tale is so psychologically focused that almost nothing happens for much of the first half. While the second half is visceral and satisfying, it also lingers too long on certain moments.

The show though keeps much of what was gripping in its first season without losing too much steam with the main reveal of last season. Esmail keeps a tight ship with intense imagery carried by fantastic acting from both sides of Mr. Robot.